How sweet it is - cane that lights up your life

Page Tools

Just as it has for more than 100 years, the old co-operative Condong mill outside Murwillumbah will grind back to life next week to crush another crop of Tweed Valley sugar cane.

For the 660 sugarcane farmers of the Tweed, Richmond and Clarence valleys on the NSW North Coast, it will be a particularly bittersweet harvest and perhaps one of the last that will produce the iconic sight of cane fields crackling with flames.

For years cane farmers have struggled for profitability in the face of international prices kept artificially low by the huge subsidies paid to US and European farmers. The Tweed had its hopes of a happy harvest dashed this year when the US Government refused to include sugar in the free trade agreement with Australia.

To compensate, the Federal Government announced another big sugar rescue package, but farmers say it is still not enough for them to create their dream of an industry where profit is literally powered by cane.

The $444 million sugar package includes $146 million in "sustainability grants" and $75 million to help the industry diversify. The sustainability money will give farmers a much-needed extra $2 to $3 a tonne for this year's harvest.

AdvertisementAdvertisement

While Queensland cane farmers - who produce 94 per cent of Australia's sugar - want to diversify through an ethanol fuel industry, NSW growers want to turn the Condong and Broadwater mills into green power stations.

As it is, the Condong mill is powered by burning "bagasse" - the cane stalk after it has been crushed dry of sugar.

With boilers that look like something from a Dickens novel, Condong generates about three megawatts of electricity an hour by burning 25 tonnes of bagasse an hour during the harvest from June to November. It uses most of the power itself.

By modernising and stockpiling bagasse, the mill could produce 30 megawatts an hour all year round - half the requirements of the Tweed Valley.

"No other cane industry is doing this," said Graham Martin, president of the NSW Cane-growers Association. "Access to the US market would have given us another $2 a tonne. Cogeneration will give us another $3 a tonne from the sale of electricity." Cogeneration would also put an end to NSW farmers burning their cane before harvest to get rid of the "trash" or leaves.

It would see the construction of a cane cleaning plant that would strip the trash so it can be burnt in the mill for electricity production. The scheme was to have started last year but has been delayed by legal challenges and a lack of money.

Upgrading both mills will cost about $100 million. Mr Martin is hopeful the Federal Government will now come good with more funding so power generation can start in 2006.